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Charles Coulson
Times obituary
Oxford Professor of Theoretical Chemistry
Professor Charles A. Coulson, FRS, whose death is announced, was Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Oxford.
He was born at Dudley in 1910. He came of farming stock, though his father had already broken with tradition and was Principal of the local technical college, a circumstance which no doubt influenced the son in his choice of a career.
He was educated at Clifton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had a distinguished career, obtaining first-class honours and a B in Part II of the Mathematical Tripos, followed by a first-class IPO in the Natural Science Tripos Part II (Physics). After a short period of research for his PhD, he was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity, which he retained until 1938 when he left to take up a lectureship at Saint Andrews. He came south again in 1945 to Oxford as one of the first Imperial Chemical Industries Fellows and Lecturers in Mathematics at University College, and in 1947 accepted a Professorship in Physics at King's College, London, returning finally to Oxford in 1952 to succeed E. A. Milne as the second Rouse Ball Professor of Applied Mathematics. He continued to hold this chair for years until in 1972 he became the first holder of a newly created chair of Theoretical Chemistry and Head of a new department. Coulson's first published paper, on the behavior of monsoons, appeared in the Journal of the Meteorological Society in 1931, while he was still an undergraduate, intending then to take up meteorological research. His interests subsequently centred in molecular physics, and for a time he worked at the Low Temperature Research Station in Cambridge on the bacteriological effects of radioactive radiation. (He occasionally used to boast that he had been, in turn, meteorologist, mathematician, biologist, physicist, and chemist.) His many published papers dealt mainly with atomic and molecular structure and its chemical implications. He was the author of two much-used textbooks on Waves, Electricity, and Magnetism, and a treatise on Valence.
Coulson, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh since 1943, was elected to the Royal Society in 1950 and was the recipient of many academic honours, including the Sykes Gold Medal, the Pierre Lecompte de Nouy Prize, the Royal Society's Davy Medal, and the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Liège. His university lectures were very carefully prepared and effectively delivered, attracting large undergraduate audiences, the largest theater in the scientific field being regularly filled to capacity. He accepted invitations to lecture in most British universities, many European countries, and America.
He spent much energy and effort in the organization of the new Mathematical Institute completed in 1963 and was happily involved in its activities for a long time. During this period, while he continued his more elementary lectures, he spent increasing effort and time organizing advanced study and research in theoretical chemistry, where his own reputation was increasingly recognized. His initial Tuesday colloquia on atomic and molecular structure were an important forum for the meeting of theorists and experimentalists. They were, indeed, one of the brightest features in the chemistry school at Oxford.
He founded a summer school for theoretical chemistry, now in its twentieth year, which was outstandingly successful. People came to it from all over Europe. When he became the first head of the new department of Theoretical Chemistry, it was a recognition of a development that had been created in Oxford through his own work.
Coulson was too young to have been one of the founders of modern theoretical chemistry, but he played a major part in developing and applying the basic principles. He was a disciple of the late Sir John Lennard-Jones, and together they largely determined the course of the British School with its emphasis on the so-called molecular orbital method of treating considerable ideas. His more important role was as an expositor. In this, because of his grasp of the subject and his lucidity, he was superb both as a writer and as a lecturer. Because he combined high intellectual gifts with integrity and genuine friendliness, he had a profound influence on his research pupils and associates who venerated him. He thought of them as a family, and the feeling was warmly reciprocated.
Brought up as a Methodist, he was deeply interested in religion and active in the life of the Christian Church, and was always ready to accept invitations to preach and lecture. He was a former vice-president of the Methodist Conference. In 1965 he became chairman of Oxfam and remained so until 1971.
His family life (he was married in 1938 and had two sons and two two daughters) was very happy, though his academic and religious commitments took him away from home more than he would have liked.
___________________________________________
Science as a Religious Activity
Dr. S. L. Altmann and Professor N. H. March write:
A few personal remarks should be added to the obituary of Charles Coulson. For a good part of his career, he devoted almost as much time to his Christian work as to science. Yet both activities were for him a reflection of a single goal—quite different from Michael Faraday, who, it is said, separated his life into different compartments. Coulson used to say that for him science was essentially a religious activity, which did not prevent him from reporting with some force the letter he received, in the Chair of Theoretical Physics at King's College, London, addressed to "The Professor of Theological Physics."
In speaking on science and on religion: He had a flair for choosing a concrete picture to illustrate an abstract point. Thus, as an enthusiastic climber, he liked to use the different views of Ben Nevis to illustrate the nature of reality. And who can forget his tall figure shaking in all directions to simulate molecular vibrations? Indeed, at heart, he was a practical man, and his religion was, for him, most profoundly expressed in the day-to-day concern for those associated with him. He would be just as likely to read and comment on a manuscript on the day he received it as he would to go out shopping for a sick colleague.
Though by nature Coulson was rather shy, this might have escaped the notice of all but his closest colleagues; such was the confident nature and the power of his leadership. He disdained frivolity and was not always happy with small talk, which, in academic circles, sometimes left an impression in conflict with the undoubted element of gaiety in his make-up
The volume of his mail was legendary, and his letters often crucially helped many in this country and abroad. In the three days before his death, he signed 80 letters, some of which he typed himself.
There will be many who will remember the friendliness and warm hospitality always offered at the home of Eileen and Charles Coulson.
_________________________________________
B.T. writes:
Your admirable obituary curiously did not mention what was possibly Charles Coulson's greatest contribution to the world of learning in general during the last two years of his life.
He was the first president of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, who had not been one of the founding members of the institute some 10 years ago; and he might, in deed, have been forgiven if he had confined his activity to allow his own personal luster to diffuse over the IMA as a whole. But not for him such a passive interpretation of a president's role. Despite ill health, he threw himself with enormous gusto into the affairs of the institute. He presided over innumerable seminars and conferences, broke with convention by giving two presidential addresses, led a financial appeal, and inspired the institute's staff.
But above all, in this brief period at the end of his life, he suddenly made himself and his great gifts well known to a wide circle of working mathematicians in industry and schools, and it is they who now, rather to their surprise, find themselves deeply thankful for this remarkable man who died within seven days of laying down his office
Oxford Professor of Theoretical Chemistry
Professor Charles A. Coulson, FRS, whose death is announced, was Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Oxford.
He was born at Dudley in 1910. He came of farming stock, though his father had already broken with tradition and was Principal of the local technical college, a circumstance which no doubt influenced the son in his choice of a career.
He was educated at Clifton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had a distinguished career, obtaining first-class honours and a B in Part II of the Mathematical Tripos, followed by a first-class IPO in the Natural Science Tripos Part II (Physics). After a short period of research for his PhD, he was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity, which he retained until 1938 when he left to take up a lectureship at Saint Andrews. He came south again in 1945 to Oxford as one of the first Imperial Chemical Industries Fellows and Lecturers in Mathematics at University College, and in 1947 accepted a Professorship in Physics at King's College, London, returning finally to Oxford in 1952 to succeed E. A. Milne as the second Rouse Ball Professor of Applied Mathematics. He continued to hold this chair for years until in 1972 he became the first holder of a newly created chair of Theoretical Chemistry and Head of a new department. Coulson's first published paper, on the behavior of monsoons, appeared in the Journal of the Meteorological Society in 1931, while he was still an undergraduate, intending then to take up meteorological research. His interests subsequently centred in molecular physics, and for a time he worked at the Low Temperature Research Station in Cambridge on the bacteriological effects of radioactive radiation. (He occasionally used to boast that he had been, in turn, meteorologist, mathematician, biologist, physicist, and chemist.) His many published papers dealt mainly with atomic and molecular structure and its chemical implications. He was the author of two much-used textbooks on Waves, Electricity, and Magnetism, and a treatise on Valence.
Coulson, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh since 1943, was elected to the Royal Society in 1950 and was the recipient of many academic honours, including the Sykes Gold Medal, the Pierre Lecompte de Nouy Prize, the Royal Society's Davy Medal, and the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Liège. His university lectures were very carefully prepared and effectively delivered, attracting large undergraduate audiences, the largest theater in the scientific field being regularly filled to capacity. He accepted invitations to lecture in most British universities, many European countries, and America.
He spent much energy and effort in the organization of the new Mathematical Institute completed in 1963 and was happily involved in its activities for a long time. During this period, while he continued his more elementary lectures, he spent increasing effort and time organizing advanced study and research in theoretical chemistry, where his own reputation was increasingly recognized. His initial Tuesday colloquia on atomic and molecular structure were an important forum for the meeting of theorists and experimentalists. They were, indeed, one of the brightest features in the chemistry school at Oxford.
He founded a summer school for theoretical chemistry, now in its twentieth year, which was outstandingly successful. People came to it from all over Europe. When he became the first head of the new department of Theoretical Chemistry, it was a recognition of a development that had been created in Oxford through his own work.
Coulson was too young to have been one of the founders of modern theoretical chemistry, but he played a major part in developing and applying the basic principles. He was a disciple of the late Sir John Lennard-Jones, and together they largely determined the course of the British School with its emphasis on the so-called molecular orbital method of treating considerable ideas. His more important role was as an expositor. In this, because of his grasp of the subject and his lucidity, he was superb both as a writer and as a lecturer. Because he combined high intellectual gifts with integrity and genuine friendliness, he had a profound influence on his research pupils and associates who venerated him. He thought of them as a family, and the feeling was warmly reciprocated.
Brought up as a Methodist, he was deeply interested in religion and active in the life of the Christian Church, and was always ready to accept invitations to preach and lecture. He was a former vice-president of the Methodist Conference. In 1965 he became chairman of Oxfam and remained so until 1971.
His family life (he was married in 1938 and had two sons and two two daughters) was very happy, though his academic and religious commitments took him away from home more than he would have liked.
___________________________________________
Science as a Religious Activity
Dr. S. L. Altmann and Professor N. H. March write:
A few personal remarks should be added to the obituary of Charles Coulson. For a good part of his career, he devoted almost as much time to his Christian work as to science. Yet both activities were for him a reflection of a single goal—quite different from Michael Faraday, who, it is said, separated his life into different compartments. Coulson used to say that for him science was essentially a religious activity, which did not prevent him from reporting with some force the letter he received, in the Chair of Theoretical Physics at King's College, London, addressed to "The Professor of Theological Physics."
In speaking on science and on religion: He had a flair for choosing a concrete picture to illustrate an abstract point. Thus, as an enthusiastic climber, he liked to use the different views of Ben Nevis to illustrate the nature of reality. And who can forget his tall figure shaking in all directions to simulate molecular vibrations? Indeed, at heart, he was a practical man, and his religion was, for him, most profoundly expressed in the day-to-day concern for those associated with him. He would be just as likely to read and comment on a manuscript on the day he received it as he would to go out shopping for a sick colleague.
Though by nature Coulson was rather shy, this might have escaped the notice of all but his closest colleagues; such was the confident nature and the power of his leadership. He disdained frivolity and was not always happy with small talk, which, in academic circles, sometimes left an impression in conflict with the undoubted element of gaiety in his make-up
The volume of his mail was legendary, and his letters often crucially helped many in this country and abroad. In the three days before his death, he signed 80 letters, some of which he typed himself.
There will be many who will remember the friendliness and warm hospitality always offered at the home of Eileen and Charles Coulson.
_________________________________________
B.T. writes:
Your admirable obituary curiously did not mention what was possibly Charles Coulson's greatest contribution to the world of learning in general during the last two years of his life.
He was the first president of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, who had not been one of the founding members of the institute some 10 years ago; and he might, in deed, have been forgiven if he had confined his activity to allow his own personal luster to diffuse over the IMA as a whole. But not for him such a passive interpretation of a president's role. Despite ill health, he threw himself with enormous gusto into the affairs of the institute. He presided over innumerable seminars and conferences, broke with convention by giving two presidential addresses, led a financial appeal, and inspired the institute's staff.
But above all, in this brief period at the end of his life, he suddenly made himself and his great gifts well known to a wide circle of working mathematicians in industry and schools, and it is they who now, rather to their surprise, find themselves deeply thankful for this remarkable man who died within seven days of laying down his office
